The Dangers of Being a Gentleman
by Laurus Nobilis
Summary: Why did Remus positively flee when Trelawney offered to crystalgaze for him? Read and find out!


_Disclaimer:_ All characters are copyright J. K. Rowling. 

_Author's Note:_ This fic is the kind of thing that happens when you've read PoA too many times– you start noticing little details. I nearly fell off my chair when I noticed Trelawney calls Remus "dear Professor Lupin" during the Christmas dinner. On the other hand, it suddenly made perfect sense why he "positively fled"…

This was written before book 5 came out, which explains the difference in Trelawney's age. 

**The Dangers Of Being A Gentleman **

The Christmas holidays had just started, but Remus was far from relaxed. The full moon was only a few days away and he wanted his work, or at least the heaviest part of it, to be finished by that time. He knew it would be much harder to catch up with it later. Organised as he was, he had everything planned to achieve that goal– but he hadn't counted with the Ravenclaws. 

He had soon discovered that they weren't just clever and studious: they loved what they did. They paid attention in class, put their heart and soul on their researches and essays, asked the most interesting (and hardest to answer) questions… It was amazing to work with them. Correcting their homework, on the other hand, was a very different story. 

In most of his classes from the other Houses, there was a student who wrote longer, more elaborated essays. Among the Ravenclaws that would be no more than average. Of course, that didn't mean they all got top marks– it's easier to make mistakes in a long essay than in one with just the basics. It took a lot of time to correct those works. 

Remus was in the middle of that when he grabbed an especially long essay. _Ah, yes. Mandy._ Mandy Crystalsea was the equivalent to Hermione Granger among the Ravenclaw seventh years. Remus had assigned them two rolls of parchment on a certain kind of counter curses– Mandy handed in four rolls and a half. He hadn't finished reading the first one when he admitted he couldn't correct it without _Curses and Counter Curses from the XVIIIth Century._ After a quick and useless search in his office, he realised he had left the book in the staff room. 

He went there hoping to find it empty, so nobody would interrupt his work, but a dreaded misty voice welcomed him as soon as he opened the door. 

"Ah, my dear Professor Lupin! My Inner Eye had told me that I would find you here." 

Remus froze on the spot. What on earth was that woman doing downstairs with the lesser mortals? _Well, at least it explains why the halls smell as if Filch had used some cheap Muggle cleaner._ Though he had only seen her once this year, during the staff meeting at the beginning of the term, he remembered Sybill Trelawney too well. 

Professor Trelawney had started working at Hogwarts in Remus's third year. He would never forget his first –and only– Divination class. He had paled at the mere sight of the silver ladder that lead to the classroom, but James had found a solution. The two boys waited for the rest of the class to climb; when nobody was watching, James transfigured the ladder into a rope one so that Remus could go up and then transfigured it back before climbing himself. 

How could they have guessed it would be even worse inside? As soon as he reached the classroom, Remus felt a wave of heavy, extremely sweet smells almost hitting him. The perfumes coming from the fire made him nauseous. His friends had to help him get to a pouffe and sit down. He was so busy trying not to be sick that he missed most of the young teacher's speech. 

What he did not miss was the shock which she wanted to give her first class. Thin, pale, tired-looking –_frail_, one could say– and at the moment obviously dizzy, Remus had the bad luck of being a perfect target. She stared at him with watery eyes and solemnly declared he wouldn't make it to the second term. 

The last thing that Remus needed was people wondering why did he look so sickly, indeed. If his friends had found out the answer to that, who said no-one else could? Fortunately, Professor McGonagall, as the head of his House, knew about his condition and was very understanding. She quickly made the necessary arrangements for him to take Arithmancy instead of Divination. It was sad to see that, twenty years later, nothing had changed– except that the student supposed to drop dead this year was none other than Harry Potter. How was that for effect? But, considering the current situation, it was a very tasteless lie. 

"Good morning, Professor Trelawney," Remus said with the most believable smile he could manage, and then proceeded to grab his book and run away. She didn't give him time to do that, though. 

"I am afraid I find myself in need of your help, Professor," she said with a pretended pleading look. "My classroom has been invaded by very violent pixies. They are destroying my tea set. Perhaps you would be so kind to take them away?" 

"I'm sorry, but I am quite busy right now. Perhaps someone else could– " 

"Of course," she interrupted, looking more than a little offended. "I can always ask Professor Snape to take care of the pixies. He certainly is as capable of fighting dark creatures as you are. But I never thought you would let a lady in distress remain helpless." 

Remus raised an eyebrow. _What is she trying to do, make me jealous? But that can only mean…_ He felt himself pale as realisation dawned on him. The woman had a crush on him! And a very unhealthy one, for that matter– although young, she was still his former teacher, after all. Or, as Lily had once put it, "a weird cross between a hippie and a giant locust". Either way, it was a disturbing thought. 

"No, of course I wouldn't," he mumbled, pushing his hair off his eyes as he seriously considered sending Sir Cadogan to said lady in distress. Suddenly he knew how to save himself. "But I'm afraid I can't enter your classroom. That ladder– " 

"Oh, my dear Professor, that's just for the _students_!" Her habit of interrupting people was starting to unnerve him. "Seers exercise only our Inner Eye and are not fond of such physical effort. Come with me, I will show you my own entrance." 

Before he could answer, she took his hand with a stronger grip than one would expect for someone who only exercised her Inner Eye and lead him to her classroom. She was so busy explaining the wonders of being All-Knowing that she didn't notice when Remus cast a Distracting Spell around them. He was _not_ to be seen hand-in-hand with Sybill Trelawney. 

They finally arrived to the top of the spiral staircase. Professor Trelawney revealed a door, hidden and protected with the same incantations used in the staff wing. The entrance lead to a new, narrower staircase. For just one moment, Remus found himself wondering if she had made up the whole story– but a sudden shattering noise proved him that the pixies were real, and very violent indeed. They soon reached the classroom itself. 

Remus ducked to avoid a tea cup aimed at him. He noticed no perfumes were coming from the fire –_why would there be any, with no students to impress?–_ but the room was still quite dark. The pixies had already destroyed almost everything, including most of the crystal balls, but they didn't show any signs of wanting to stop the fun. 

However, Remus didn't find it hard to control them (hunting down pixies had been just another one of his many jobs) and he quickly locked them in a cage he had conjured. 

"Mind if I keep them?" he asked. "They might be quite instructive for my second years." 

"Oh, of course you can take them! I certainly do not need them here." 

Looking around, Remus had to admit that she had had enough with pixies to last for a lifetime. To say the room was a mess would have been an understatement. There were pieces of crystal and porcelain everywhere; all the small tables were upside-down, some of them with their legs broken; most of the pouffes had lost part of their stuffing. It would take many spells to fix everything– but he wasn't going to be talked into that. He had already done too much. Taking his book in one hand and the cage in the other, he headed towards the door. 

"Are you leaving so soon, Remus?" Professor Trelawney asked. _Since when is she calling me by my first name?_

"I've already told you, I'm extremely busy." 

"But won't you at least have some tea before you go back to work? I could read the tea leaves for you once you're finished." 

Remus raised an eyebrow, looking at the broken cups all around them. It would be impossible to have tea for a while, and he was grateful for that. Trelawney, it seemed, had noticed that little detail too. 

"Well, perhaps not _tea_," she said. "But look!" She bent and picked up something that lay on the floor beside her- an intact crystal ball. "I can crystal-gaze for you. The Orb will tell us what is to come in our future." 

Suddenly correcting the Ravenclaws' homework seemed very appealing. Actually, wrestling the giant squid was more appealing than staying alone with Sybill Trelawney in a semi-dark room. And hadn't she said _our_ future? Remus had the very disturbing feeling that she was about to "see" something along the lines of a love cruise. Or even a honeymoon. He stepped back instinctively. 

"I'm very sorry, _Professor_, but I really have to– " 

"But you look so tired! You mustn't work so hard. Just stay for a while and… " 

She was starting to approach him, and he stepped back so quickly that he nearly tripped over a pouffe. He couldn't even think of a polite way to get away from her– being a gentleman was proving to be much more dangerous than one would think. The only thing he managed to do was to put the pixies' cage between them. Now Trelawney was the one who stepped back, startled. 

"Maybe some other day," Remus said with a very fake smile, and he made it to the door before she could realise what was happening. He walked down the stairs so fast that it was a miracle he didn't fall. When he reached the spiral staircase he stopped for a moment as he put the book and the cage down to close the door. 

Yet before he did so, a wild thought ran through his mind. He tried to ignore it– it was childish, really, and he did need the pixies. _But only one won't be missed, will it?_

Without giving himself time to think about it, he grabbed the cage, released one of the pixies and locked the door. He didn't have to wait long until a shrill (and overacted) scream filled the tower. 

Grinning broadly, Remus picked up his things and went to correct the essays in a much better mood.


End file.
